_Proposed to contain one-and-twenty volumes in quarto._
Begun April 20, 1724. To be continued weekly, if due encouragement be
given.
But one lock and a half in the whole house.
The key of the garden-door lost.
The empty bottles all uncleanable.
The vessels for drink very few and leaky.
The new house going to ruin before it is finished.
One hinge of the street-door broke off, and the people forced to go out
and come in at the back-door.
The door of the Dean's bed-chamber full of large chinks.
The beaufet letting in so much wind that it almost blows out the candles.
The Dean's bed threatening every night to fall under him.
The little table loose and broken in the joints.
The passages open overhead, by which the cats pass continually into the
cellar, and eat the victuals, for which one was tried, condemned, and
executed by the sword.
The large table in a very tottering condition.
But one chair in the house fit for sitting on, and that in a very ill
state of health.
The kitchen perpetually crowded with savages.
Not a bit of mutton to be had in the country.
Want of beds, and a mutiny thereupon among the servants, until supplied
from Kells.
An egregious want of all the most common necessary utensils.
Not a bit of turf in this cold weather; and Mrs. Johnson and the Dean in
person, with all their servants, forced to assist at the bog, in gathering
up the wet bottoms of old clumps.
The grate in the ladies' bedchamber broke, and forced to be removed, by
which they were compelled to be without fire, the chimney smoking
intolerably; and the Dean's great-coat was employed to stop the wind from
coming down the chimney, without which expedient they must have been
starved to death.
A messenger sent a mile to borrow an old broken tun-dish.
Bottles stopped with bits of wood and tow, instead of corks.
Not one utensil for a fire, except an old pair of tongs, which travels
through the house, and is likewise employed to take the meat out of the
pot, for want of a flesh-fork.
Every servant an arrant thief as to victuals and drink, and every comer
and goer as arrant a thief of everything he or she can lay their hands on.
The spit blunted with poking into bogs for timber, and tears the meat to
pieces.
_Bellum atque faeminam_; or a kitchen war between nurse and a nasty crew of
both sexes; she to preserve order and cleanliness, they to destroy both;
and they generally are conquerors.
_April 28._ This morning the great fore-door quite open, dancing backward
and forward with all its weight upon the lower hinge, which must have been
broken if the Dean had not accidentally come and relieved it.
A great hole in the floor of the ladies' chamber, every hour hazarding a
broken leg.
Two iron spikes erect on the Dean's bedstead, by which he is in danger of
a broken shin at rising and going to bed.
The ladies' and Dean's servants growing fast into the manners and
thieveries of the natives; the ladies themselves very much corrupted; the
Dean perpetually storming, and in danger of either losing all his flesh,
or sinking into barbarity for the sake of peace.
Mrs. Dingley full of cares for herself, and blunders and negligence for
her friends. Mrs. Johnson sick and helpless. The Dean deaf and fretting;
the lady's maid awkward and clumsy; Robert lazy and forgetful; William a
pragmatical, ignorant, and conceited puppy; Robin and nurse the two great
and only supports of the family.
_Bellum lactaeum_; or the milky battle, fought between the Dean and the
crew of Quilca; the latter insisting on their privilege of not milking
till eleven in the forenoon: whereas Mrs. Johnson wanted milk at eight for
her health. In this battle the Dean got the victory; but the crew of
Quilca begin to rebel again; for it is this day almost ten o'clock, and
Mrs. Johnson has not got her milk.
A proverb on the laziness and lodgings of the servants: "The worse their
sty--the longer they lie."
Two great holes in the wall of the ladies' bedchamber, just at the back of
the bed, and one of them directly behind Mrs. Johnson's pillow, either of
which would blow out a candle in the calmest day.